Posts Tagged ‘advice’

It helps us prove to future employers that we are committed to the profession and possessed of some newsgathering, writing and editing nous. It also gives us the chance to get stuck in. Working in a professional newsroom is like jumping in at the deep end, and that’s a great test of our abilities. We get to learn how things really work; we get to land stories and see them published; as well as getting feedback from editors, forging great contacts and trying out some of the things we’ve been told in lectures or read in blogs or books.

Work experience can markedly improve us wannabe journalists. People pick up important things that wouldn’t occur to them if they weren’t actually doing it. There are a huge number of people keen to get experience under their belt in the hope of snagging that dream media job or prestigious course place; and there are almost as many organisations out there poised to take advantage of them.

At the moment paid entry-level jobs are rarer than a Telegraph leader that doesn’t involve MP’s expenses. Unpaid internships and work experience placements, however, are relatively abundant on the Journalism.co.uk forums and Gorkana.

A good work experience placement is valuable, so please don’t bother doing one that isn’t worth your time. Know what you’re getting yourself into before you go. Don’t put up with frustration and disappointment.

For example, if you feel that churning out copy for a website isn’t advancing your skills that much, why not start blogging instead? It’ll all be under your own name, you’ll have far more control over what you write and you’ll get kudos for showing initiative.

Being allowed into the newsroom of a national newsroom is awesome, but if it’s all tea-making and paper-pushing, ask yourself: am I okay with being here, doing this? Some might argue that being there, poised to take advantage of any stray opportunity, is enough. Others would tell you to run for the hills.

What I’m trying to say is: work experience is an investment. Make sure you’re clear in your own mind what you want to get out of a placement, and that you understand what a paper, radio station, whatever, is offering you before you accept.

Don’t allow yourself to be exploited, and don’t get seduced by visions of an impressively crammed CV into doing things that in reality, aren’t going to mean much to a savvy potential employer. Do what you think is worth doing. Target the places and people you think you would love to learn from, and don’t stop pursuing them (without straying into rabid stalkerdom).